<p>i'm a lurker on AoPS. I have an account, I just don't post with it; I use it to take classes.</p>
<p>I actually just remembered this, but my older brother qualified for USAMO, and he got into Stanford. Haha. This was also in the olden days when the AMC was still called the AHSME though. He attended 1997-2001. He's a smart cookie.</p>
<p>the AMC12 isn't THAT hard. you only need 14 questions right to get over 100 and qualify for AIME. i've always been able to do that. the problem is being able to answer the other 11 questions so you can qualify for the USAMO... <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>i love this math competition, i wish i could invest more of my time into it, then maybe I'd actually have a chance. I'd ditch grades for it; but alas, parental units. bleh.</p>
<p>lol yeah i have an AoPS account...posted like twice on it tho ^__^
and qualifying back then was...pretty hard. i think about 200 ppl a year qualified. haha ur brother is a smart cookie 8)</p>
<p>I'll ditch them once my second term is over. =D I'm a senior, and my grades haven't ever been looking too good, (they're not bad, they're just not CC material) so need to focus on them for now... >_<</p>
<p>one of my classmates got like 80ish in math11 this term? (we have 3 terms)</p>
<p>but he also got 71 in COMC and was only 1 point away from qualifying for canadian math olympiad. seriously, although it's probably easier to get in CMO than USAMO, there are only 50 people that get CMO. he was 1 point away. and he's grade 10. </p>
<p>last year when he was in gr.9, he got ~140 for AMC10. </p>
<p>so yeah there are alot of people though not nearly as much as the opposite do well on contests but not so well in school.</p>
<p>school math is..... boring and time consuming but all you need to do is like study for a few minutes before and ace the test, forget material.</p>
<p>contest math is simple, elegant math that requires you to know the stuff more deep and be able to critically think. It's different. not harder. it's even easier, I would say.</p>
<p>it's easier if you know how to do it.
lol AMC math is like: max. 3 minutes neededd to actually DO the problem, but up to 43504358 minutes to THINK of how to do the problem</p>
<p>and lol...school math is stupid, but if he could make that many careless mistakes than he would make quite a few careless mistakes on the AIME, which is like huge numbers and no partial credit and fill-in answers</p>
<p>Doing well in the AMC-series definitely will only help your application. However, don't do these contests JUST to write it down as an achievement. The purpose of these contests is to encourage interest in challengeing problem solving, so actual scores on the competitions matter less than learning and enhancing your creativity in math.</p>
<p>And yes, contest math (the good contests) just test your creative thinking. A lot of the problems can be solved with no more than Geometry, though you do need to work hard to find the right approaches.</p>
<p>Because you're probably a senior or junior if you're prowling these boards? ;)</p>
<p>but if you're talking about a 10th grader - it is (i think) easier to score >100 on AMC 12 than >120 on AMC10. Since sophomores and below can get into AIME by a floor score, they don't have to worry about the AMC12 + 10*AIME index, so as long as they qualify for AIME (even with low AMC12 score), they have a good chance of advancing if they beat the floor.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but if you're talking about a 10th grader - it is (i think) easier to score >100 on AMC 12 than >120 on AMC10.
[/quote]
lol so thats the only reason? haha YEAH my calc teacher was recommending the AMC10 to a 7th grade girl in my class and i was like, are you kdding, take the 12 its better...dot dot dot...i really don't know why</p>
<p>hey do you guys want to make a thread to go over past amc 12 problems? I have last year's 12B contest lying around somewhere. Looking back, I am pretty sure the first 20 are quite approachable. I could post them 1 by 1, AoPS only went over about 6-7 problems from the B contest last year. Let me know what you guys think.</p>
<p>sure why not, how many questions should I post at a time? I think I'll start posting 3 at a time and then 1 when the questions get harder. Of course I also have to read pride and prejudice blah.</p>